Thursday, February 21, 2013

The 63d Annual A.C.E. Eddie Awards

The annual A.C.E.
Eddie Awards dinner reminds me of the Passover Seder. Each year, when Jewish families celebrate
the exodus of Hebrew slaves from Egypt, the youngest child asks, “Why is this
night different from all other nights?”
(Ritual requires that four answers be given; these responses, each
including the words “on this night,” have paradoxically become known as “the
four questions.”)

Like Passover
repasts, Eddie Awards ceremonies mark a divergence from the norm. On this night, editors get together with a
thousand peers to honor excellence in a craft that’s usually unnoticed or misunderstood,
even by fellow filmmakers. On this
night, editors bask in the limelight. On
this night actors and directors seem to feel privileged just to be in the
company of editors. On this night
editors receive full recognition for their work, even as co-writers and co-creators
of performance.

And so, on this
night - February 16, 2013 - it was delightful to see 1,000 esteemed colleagues
at the Beverly Hilton Hotel celebrating nominees for and winners of A.C.E.’s highest honor. Mingling
with such editing luminaries as Alan Heim (NETWORK, ALL THAT JAZZ), Bob
Leighton (THIS IS SPINAL TAP, A FEW GOOD MEN), Dody Dorn (MEMENTO, INSOMNIA), Mary
Jo Markey and Marianne Brandon (STAR TREK, SUPER 8), Steve Rivkin (PIRATES OF
THE CARRIBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, AVATAR), Kevin Tent (ELECTION, THE
DESCENDANTS) and so many others, I felt both humbled and at home. At home with filmmakers who understand what
it means to combine several takes in order to create one well-performed line of
dialogue! Who know how, oddly enough, a
film might improve as a whole when a good or even great scene is deleted to accelerate its pace. Who know, as Paul Hirsch (STAR WARS, RAY) once
told me, “The difference between a good cut and a bad one is a twenty-fourth of
a second.”

All of the
above-named editors have found themselves in the limelight at one time or
another, with Academy or Eddie Award recognition. And this year, I found myself sharing the limelight, as co-presenter of the trophy for Best Edited
Documentary with Josh Radnor (HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, LIBERAL ARTS). Arriving at the Hilton, I
was invited by A.C.E.’s Marika Ellis, event planner extraordinaire, to walk the
red carpet. The irony of an editor smiling
for paparazzi and fielding questions from journalists was palpable.

But I truly
enjoyed sharing the insights that those queries elicited. Asked to name one quality that was essential
to good editing, I recalled a moment from early in my career. The producers of a tiny movie I was cutting showed
a rough assembly to Jerry Greenberg (KRAMER VS. KRAMER, THE UNTOUCHABLES). He commented that the work “showed some sensitivity.” Sensitivity? This, I thought, from the editor of such
testosterone-fueled pictures as THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE TAKING OF PELHAM
1-2-3! What he meant, I learned, was
that editors had to allow themselves to be moved
by the raw material – by what was authentic, or beautiful, funny or sad - and
that, regardless of literal matches or mismatches of action, good cutting
mandated that the deeply affecting pieces of film make their way into the cut.

The notion of
sensitivity recurred, putting me in the spotlight once more, as the award
presentations began. Jon Voight (MIDNIGHT
COWBOY, COMING HOME), with whom I’d worked on ANACONDA, took the stage to
announce the nominees for Best Edited Student Film. He’d asked me backstage if he could share a
story about the snake movie, which he proceeded to do. From the wings, I heard him recount that, in
a shot where the enormous ophidian had spit him out at Jennifer Lopez’s feet,
he winked at the camera, but no one on set had seen it. I did
see it, of course. And, sensing that the
wink was a key to finding ANACONDA’s arch tone, I used it. The moment wound up in the final cut as a
signal to the audience that, yes, it was okay to laugh at the movie.

So… this night
was different because a four-time Oscar nominee and one-time winner for Best
Actor led the way in shifting focus away from thespians and directors, onto
editors. The celebration of “invisible
artists” by those with high profiles continued when the winner of last year’s
Golden Eddie, director Alexander Payne (ABOUT SCHMIDT, SIDEWAYS), co-presented
a Career Achievement Eddie to Richard Marks (APOCALYPSE NOW, TERMS OF
ENDEARMENT).

In a callback to
his hilarious yet touching Golden Eddie acceptance speech, Alexander Payne
overemphasized the American Cinema Editors acronym when referring to Richard
Marks, A.C.E. as he had when praising his
longtime collaborator, Kevin Tent, A.C.E.
(Kevin was2012’s winner for Best Edited Feature, Payne’s THE DESCENDANTS.) The director spoke almost reverently of Marks,
his former film instructor at UCLA. It
was wonderful for a roomful of cutters to hear Alexander Payne state
unequivocally that he’d learned most of what he knows about filmmaking from one
of our own.

And how could an
aspiring filmmaker not learn from Richard Marks, A.C.E.? His credits include LITTLE BIG MAN, SERPICO,
THE GODFATHER: PART II and APOCALYPSE NOW!, ST. ELMO’S FIRE and PRETTY IN PINK,
BROADCAST NEWS and AS GOOD AS IT GETS, DICK TRACY, SAY ANYTHING, YOU’VE GOT MAIL, JULIA AND JULIA
and more. Obviously, American Cinema
Editors doesn’t mess around when giving a career achievement award.

During Marks’ acceptance speech, which he re-edited right down to the wire, he, too,
mentioned sensitivity as an important attribute for cutters. He said that as a student, Alexander Payne was
“performance sensitive.” That same quality
in Richard Marks himself is what makes his films he so vibrant. “Although I always try to protect the
original intentions of the script,” he says, “a film has a life of its own and
it evolves.”

Documentaries, as
a rule, are made without a
script. So on this night, legendary
non-fiction editor, Larry Silk (MARJOE, PUMPING IRON) was acknowledged for
career achievement in shaping compelling stories from hundreds of hours of film on each project. Doc icon Barbara Kopple (HARLAN COUNTY,
U.S.A.; MY GENERATION), presenting Silk with his trophy, talked about how
honored she felt when he agreed to edit her Woody Allen piece, WILD MAN
BLUES. And who wouldn’t have been? His work – on the CBS series THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY (with Walter Cronkite), JOHNNY CASH! THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC, the
aforementioned MARJOE and PUMPING IRON, and so many other projects – has always
been groundbreaking. Speaking of their
collaboration, Kopple shared her awe as she watched Silk whittle her raw
material down from hundreds of hours to fifteen hours, to five and, finally, to
an hour and forty-five riveting minutes.

And on this
night, 2013 Golden Eddie-recipient Steven Spielberg (JAWS, LINCOLN and
everything in between), exuding a kind of humility borne of true greatness,
also acknowledged editors as storytellers and close collaborators. He spun a wonderful yarn about being on the
Universal lot as a wide-eyed 19 year old, watching a television editor work
with abysmal dailies of a courtroom summation.
The lead actor couldn’t remember two consecutive lines, spewing
expletives more often than scripted dialogue.
So the cutter tossed out visuals of the star floundering. He then deleted all flubs and swearing from
the sound track, creating a serviceable audio version of the previously mangled
monologue. Next he strung together shots
from throughout the show that illustrated the speech he’d rescued, creating an
effective summation montage to go along with the salvaged performance. Spielberg was duly amazed. Always the gifted raconteur, however, he
finished his story with a twist: the network hated the editor’s solution and
reshot the scene as scripted.

But the esteemed
director moved easily from irony to love and gratitude. Of his three decades-long collaboration with
Michael Kahn, A.C.E., he simply said, “Without you, I wouldn’t be standing here
tonight.” His remarks about the cutting
room itself – that it’s a “safe haven” in which you can try anything with your
film in the utmost privacy – bespoke a profound understanding and appreciation
of the process of editing. And
illustrating the kind of family-like closeness that develops in
post-production, Spielberg said he’s been following the editing career of
Michael Kahn’s former assistant, Billy Goldenberg, who, minutes later, won the
Eddie for Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic), for ARGO.

The Passover
Seder ends with a dessert known as the
afikomen. My Eddie Award dinner afikomen was presenting the Best Edited
Television Documentary statuette to Pamela Arnold for AMERICAN MASTERS “PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE.” Pam and I started our editing careers
together in New York, cutting “after school specials.” At the time, I’m not sure we even knew Eddies
existed.

Of course, I
congratulate all the award winners
and nominees. They should be extremely
proud of their excellent work. As should
Jenni McCormick (a force of nature), Marika Ellis and Tami Flannery, producers
of the 63d Annual Eddie Awards.

4 comments:

Always appreciate your stories and words of wisdom...now congrats on being the one in front of the audience and the cameras and lights, and the one on the red carpet! You've had a long and lustrous career, with lots of goodness still to come.

FilmMaking Insider TipsThis is probably what you tell yourself. Do you watch films with more than a casual eye? You probably want to know how they were able to get perfect lighting in your favorite scene, or how to write a professional screenplay. Do you watch the Actor’s Studio and hang on every word they say? Go To: http://is.gd/4OTQzL

About Me

Michael R. Miller has had a dream career in film editing. After graduating from Cornell
University, he landed the plum job of assistant editor on Woody Allen’s MANHATTAN. He worked in the same capacity on Mr. Allen’s STARDUST MEMORIES and on Martin Scorcese’s RAGING BULL. Subsequently Mr. Miller became a sound editor on Joel and Ethan Coen’s BLOOD SIMPLE, and went on to collaborate with "the boys" as picture editor of RAISING ARIZONA and
MILLER’S CROSSING. His many other cutting credits include Terry Zwygoff’s GHOST WORLD, Herbert Ross’ BOYS ON THE SIDE, Thomas Carter’s SWING KIDS, Rocky Morton and Annablel Jankel’s D.O.A., Keenan Wayans’ I’M GONNA GIT U, SUCKA,
Paul Dinello’s STRANGERS WITH CANDY, Michael Bay’s ARMAGEDDON, Rupert
Wainwright’s STIGMATA and Anthony Hopkins’ SLIPSTREAM. He also edited Josh Radnor’s HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE, winner of the 2010 Sundance Film
Festival Audience Award, Mr. Radnor's well-reviewed LIBERAL ARTS, which premiered at Sundance in 2012, and Maya Forbes' INFINITELY POLAR BEAR, which also premiered at Sundance. He is currently a film professor at University of North Carolina School of the Arts.